However, while US post-cybernetic media studies are tied to thinking about bodies and organisms,German media theory is linked to a shift in the history of meaning arisingfrom a revolt against the hermeneutical tradition of textual interpretationand the sociological tradition of communication

So in Siegert's assessment, US posthumanism is focused on the body whereas German posthumanism is focused on meaning and signification.

To grasp the distinction, I think I need better understanding of where meaning was and where it shifted to (and how that becomes posthuman).

Mention has been made of the new environmental body. Strictly speaking, under this clause as it currently stands, the Government would be able to establish, under secondary legislation, the kind of body that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who is no longer in his place, was arguing for earlier—a body so powerful it could sanction other public bodies, including the Government, if it was able to reproduce the powers that presently rest with the European Commission. That is an enormous power, which this House would not allow the Executive arm of government on its own without primary legislation conducted through the two Houses.

Indeed, perhaps the most obvious thing to send (though it’s a bit macabre) would just be whole cryonically preserved humans (and, yes, they should keep well at the temperature of interstellar space!). Of course, it’s ironic how similar this is to the Egyptian idea of making mummies—though our technology is better (even if we still haven’t yet solved the problem of cryonics).

Douglass's complex rhetorical stance opened new possibilities for rhetoric in the Western cultural tradition.

This is even more true now. As our readings late in the semester will perform, rhetoric is increasingly renewing its interest in the material alongside its longstanding interest in the body. Douglass speaks to these.